Every year, more and more birds are being purchased from breeders and pet stores to become household pets. One reason the bird has always been a popular pet is that many birds in the parrot family are indeed very intelligent. Unlike any other pet, birds can be trained to speak, sing songs and recite sounds. This tends to be very rewarding and entertaining as the bird's vocabulary grows and has become a desired goal for many bird owners. According to experts, the proven method of training a bird to talk is to provide short training sessions several times throughout the day. The trainings should occur at the same time each day in a voice that the bird is familiar with. Each session should consist of clearly repeating the desired words or phrase for a period of several minutes. Understandably so, this structured training method presents a problem for most people. Few owners have the luxury of being in close proximity to the bird during the course of a day or are unable to reserve time for this repetitious task. For this reason, and the lack of perseverance of the owner, training usually becomes irregular and is reduced to a minimal amount, if any at all. This leads to results that are limited, if any, and causes frustration for both the bird and the owner.
It has previously been suggested that birds could be trained to talk from an endless loop magnetic tape playback unit that is operated by the weight of a bird on a perch as shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,847,120. However, this prior device lacks controlled periodic training sessions coupled with the mechanical integrity of the tape mechanism. The occurrence of a bird coming to rest on the perch to activate the mechanism and remaining fixed throughout the duration of the message playback provides a random and possibly incomplete training pattern. Because the activity level of a given bird varies due to age and species, at no moment is one sure of the frequency, duration or even occurrence of a training session. The prior art device provides minimal training, if any, with a less active bird while subjecting an energetic bird to constant "bombardment" of the recorded message.
Another shortcoming of the prior art device is the inability to maintain clear, precise word pronunciation. This device uses a magnetic tape for a recording medium that, during normal operation, is subjected to physical wear and abrasion from contacting magnetic heads and guide pulleys. This deterioration of the tape's magnetic surface degrades the sound quality of the recorded message, and if not serviced, will render the message playback illegible. Thus, it can be appreciated that improved devices for teaching a bird to recite words, music or sounds.